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Arts More Popular Than Sports in Boston


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A local Boston area paper, the MetroWest Daily News, ran an article several weeks ago (February 8, 2004) about a survey spearheaded by the Performing Arts Research Coalition.

According to this article, the survey yielded some surprising results:

78 percent of the Boston population attended at least one professional performing arts event in the past year while just 56 percent had been to a pro sports event
almost twice as many people attended a live performing arts event (78 percent) as compared with a live pop/rock concert (44 percent)
The percentage of Boston respondents who had been to a movie in the past year (84 percent) was only 6 percent higher than those attending a live professional performing arts event
About 93 percent of respondents believe the performing arts contribute to the education and development of children, while 70 percent of all respondents said they visited a museum or gallery in the last year.

It looks like you can find more details at http://www.operaamerica.org/parc/

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I grew up a mere 12 miles from the city of Boston, but in a small seaside suburb. The wonderful thing about the arts within the city of Boston is that the major theaters are in pretty much the same area...the theater district. I like being able to see what is on the marquee of another theater as I am at my theater, and perhaps even walk across to that box office and buy a ticket for a future performance. I remember when it was so closely bordered by the 'combat zone' (one street over). It was scary. I don't think nearly as many people attended the arts way back then as they do today. The area has cleaned up (though I will say it has been almost 5 years since I have been in to the city, though my parents last saw The Producers there and were again amazed at the theater district). I performed at The Wang Center when it was still The Music Hall. We were NEVER allowed to be outside the theater unless we were well chaperoned, and even then it was sketchy.

Now, access to the arts area is fairly easy, upscale, yet still with affordable eating areas. It is easier for students in the area to attend arts performances with student 'rush' tickets than it is for them to attend big name sports events. The other nice thing is that there are many colleges and universities in the area that have good dance, music and art departments that encourage attendance to an arts performance.

b1

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almost twice as many people attended a live performing arts event (78 percent) as compared with a live pop/rock concert (44 percent)

I'm not sure that calling 78% "almost" 88% isn't stretching things a bit, too.

Rock concerts are performing arts events. This is a very sloppy report.

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This report ignores the fact that popular culture plays a HUGE influence through the mass media. For example, nearly everybody (ballet dancers included) watches the SuperBowl every year, even though only maybe a couple hundred thousdand watch it LIVE. Same for rock concerts: rock's influence extends WAY beyond the live concert, thanks to recorded media. When one takes these factors into acount, I think one must conclude that popular culture and sports are FAR more popular than the "high arts".

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Couple points, Citibob:

1) I don't think "almost everyone" watches the superbowl. Many people I know avoid it. :wink: Almost everyone is aware of it, however. :rolleyes:

2) Sometimes studies such as this aim to measure the economic activity generated by live events, not necessarily the cultural influence. One begins to wonder, however, were there a wider range of ballet videos available commercially, and if those videos were marketed as aggressively as the (in many cases) here-today-forgotten-tomorrow movies, what the shelves of the video stores would look like. :o

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Statistics are great tools for telling lies, because you can figure out a way to have them support any position, however ridiculous. If Boston is such a great arts town, why did they kick Boston Ballet's Nutcracker out of the Wang Center in favor of the Rockettes?

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Yes the report is sloppy, but I can say having lived in the midwest, San Francisco, overseas and Boston, that indeed Boston folks do attend many a performance.

I wonder how much of this statistic is based on universities and students activity?

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